First Look: Clean Freak! Aoyama-kun

Premise

The darts landed on ‘OCD’ and ‘soccer’, so here we are.

Euri’s verdict: A passable OVA?

Aoyama-kun is a soccer genius, and also a clean freak. This doesn’t appear to be the story of someone slowly learning to cope with their disorder, or the struggles that come with wanting to be a successful athlete, but rather it’s a comedy that focuses on just how strange he is. I don’t want to go ahead and assume that people who actually have OCD are going to look at this and be upset by it – heck, they might enjoy seeing Aoyama out there enjoying himself – but it does seem a little off.

As a comedy, it fell flat. There weren’t any jokes per se, more comedic reactions to all of the strange situations Aoyama is involved in, and a smattering of tactical chibi for emphasis. Without the comedy landing in any meaningful way, this becomes a very stale sports anime with no plot in sight. There’s little in the way of character development, and we already know Aoyama makes a career out of the soccer thanks to a flash-forward at the start, so… what’s left?

If this was a single episode OVA, it would be dull, but inoffensive and passable. I can’t picture what a full cour looks like, and I’m honestly not that eager to find out. There are better comedies if you want that, and if you want a good soccer anime, you can do better there too.

Jel’s verdict: Abs

I was tired of the single “joke” this show has within the first few minutes. Making someone good at soccer because they’re a clean freak is dumb. Making all the girls fall in love with Aoyama because he’s a clean freak is dumb. Undermining the entire joke by just having him get dirty at the end of the game was dumb. Aren’t they supposed to come up with some ridiculous workaround in a situation like that? Isn’t that the entire point? Or were they trying to make their main character not completely insufferable?

Point is, this wasn’t very good unless you like abs. There sure was a lot of abs.